


Gods & Goddesses

by AndreaLyn



Category: The Almighty Johnsons
Genre: Gen, Genderbending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-18
Updated: 2013-04-03
Packaged: 2017-12-05 17:37:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/725999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Anders Johnson -- nee Andrea -- turned twenty-one, she became a goddess in a family of gods; the Frigg to their Bragi, Hodr, Baldr, and Ullr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mike

**Author's Note:**

> AU in which Anders has always been a woman.

The candles flicker softly in the woods. Asgardian stones surround her and Anders Johnson – née Andrea – becomes a goddess. She exhales and sags forward, blinking up at Mike and Olaf, who are crowding her like she’s going to pass out or faint or something.   
  
“It’s not like the…” Mike says.  
  
“No.”  
  
“And less of the lightning.”  
  
“Yes,” says Olaf.  
  
Mike cranes his head in her direction and stares unnervingly at Anders, who stares right back. She’s been feeling beyond fucking mad lately between the visions and the overwhelming need to screw everything that moves and now Mike tells her that she’s a goddess. She draws the robe tighter around herself, not sure why she got naked for this -- not that Anders has ever really needed a good reason to get naked.   
  
“So?” Mike coaxes. "How do you feel?"  
  
“If I’m a goddess, which goddess?” Anders asks, completely on board with the whole idea. Better to be a Norse goddess than completely barking mad. She's pretty relieved there’s a reason for some of the things she’s been feeling lately considering her head has been like a warzone for her sanity recently. She looks to Mike, who shakes his head cluelessly, then to Olaf, who seems to be the one with the information.  
  
Olaf’s eyes are closed and it looks like he’s divining the secrets of the universe – when more likely than not, he’s stoned and trying to work his way past a miasma of marijuana. Then, though, he opens his eyes and he looks right at Anders like the whole world has changed.  
  
“Frigg.”  
  
And maybe it has.  
  


* * *

  
Anders had started her business six months after her twenty-first. She’s the goddess of marriage, clearly she can put on a better wedding to-do than anyone else in Auckland and she’s  _offended_  by the idea that anyone can do it better. She’s brilliant with the plans and sweet-talking the brides and grooms. She hires a young co-op student named Dawn and starts grooming her for a position with Johnson Weddings. 

Roughly seven months after becoming a goddess, Anders starts figuring out the catch that comes with being Frigg.

They’re at Mike’s place, Olaf on the couch, while Mike distributes beers. Val’s been by with Rob and is long gone and now it’s a matter of waiting for Ty to leave. Mike steers him to bed with a strict instruction about exams in the morning, they check on Axl, and then Anders feels free to unleash the unholy chaos that’s been her life lately.

“It’s fucked up,” she hisses. “I slept with him  _once_ , it wasn’t even good, and now he wants to marry me! And it’s not the first. The last five men roughly my age and decently good at sex all wound up on one knee.”

Olaf offers a hapless shrug. “You’re Frigg. What did you think ‘goddess of marriage’ meant?”

“Shit,” Anders swears, grabbing one of the beers Mike’s holding out before collapsing back against the comfortable cushions, wiggling her hips to make room for Mike beside her. “I wanted a quick fuck, not a lifetime together. There’s a reason for the sanctity of marriage. I’m not spending my whole life chained to some douchebag who thinks a goatee is high fashion."

She hits her temple against Mike’s shoulder again and again. 

“Fix it,” she whines.

“Anders, shut the fuck up,” Mike retorts heatedly. “Did you try not sleeping with them?”

“Why would I do that?” she asks, a clueless look on her face as she peers up at Mike through the fringe of her mussed hair. “I like having sex.”

“And having sex with them makes them want to marry you,” Mike says. “So stop having sex with mortals.”

Anders rolls her eyes and pokes Mike in the side, hard as she can, but all he does is huff out a bemused laugh and wrap his arms around her so she can barely move. “I swear to god, you get off on this whole knight in shining armour thing,” she accuses, muffled by Mike trying to suffocate her with _kindness_. “It’s sick. Sick and wrong and I only kind of like it a little.” 

Olaf passes over a joint and Anders happily partakes, curling up with Mike comfortably while Ty and Axl sleep nearby without any fucking clue.

* * *

  
Six months ago, just after Anders turned twenty-one, Mike had been a wreck. “I nearly lost him,” he babbles, hands all over the place as he wildly gestures like he's trying to get out all the bad shit through gesturing alone. “Shit, Anders, I nearly lost Rob. The doctors say a few inches more to the side and it would’ve been a coma or…or worse…”

Anders reaches out and grips Mike by the shoulders to stop him pacing. “Wish I had some sweet words to make you feel better about this shit.” She hauls him in tight and presses a kiss to his cheek. “Mike, this is what’s happening. We’re going out and we'll get some lunch, maybe a drink or five, and after that you’re going to help me pick out what I want my new office to look like.”

“What new office?” Mike asks, voice scratchy. 

“I’m going to be a wedding planner,” Anders says with delight. “Goddess of marriage, wedding planner, it’s like I’m cheating.”

Mike barely looks up and that’s when Anders slides her fingers over Mike’s jaw to press a kiss to his cheek. “You know, sometimes you’re a half decent person,” he grumbles. “Just…no more making out with Val to prove a point?”

“What, it had you and Rob going,” Anders shrugs. “Oh, and I’m moving back in. Johnsons under one roof again, I feel like it’s right. Besides, Ty’s going to be twenty-one in a matter of years and he’s already a brooding pile of a mess. You know it’s only going to get worse and you need all the help you can get."

“Don’t remind me,” Mike sighs.

* * *

When Mike was seven and Anders was four, their mother took them both aside and told them that one day, they’d be blood enemies. Mike stubbornly hugged Anders tight and ruffled her hair. “We won’t,” Mike complains. 

“Never,” Anders agrees. 

When Mike is twenty-five and Anders is twenty-two, they fall into new roles as Mum and Dad to Axl, which Ty keeps insisting is going to warp Axl beyond belief. “You ever remember Mum?” Anders asks. “How she kept insisting that gods and goddesses can’t get along? That we’d be at war? Why aren’t we like that?” she asks, pouring another glass of white wine for herself.

“Maybe because you crave being needed and I tend to enjoy being protective?” Mike replies.

Anders makes room in Mike’s chair, settling in beside his lap easily, peering down the hall to where Axl is sleeping. “Maybe it’s for them? For Axl?” she says with a shrug. “Oh, and hey, there’s this guy who wants to marry me, he’s been planning a tropical vacation and came by with doilies for me to approve. Will you…?”

“Yeah,” Mike sighs.

* * *

  
And when Axl is twenty-one, the lightning strikes from above. Ty is cold and dark, Anders is marriage, Mike is the game and the hunt, and Olaf is reborn – again and again. When the smoke clears, they all look to Olaf expectantly, breath held tight. 

“Bragi,” Olaf says. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Mike groans and Anders crosses her arms over her chest and can’t agree more.


	2. Olaf

When Anders’ goddess ceremony is over, Olaf rests a hand on her shoulder and tells her that she has to stay for a while. Mike arches a brow and looks ready to protest, but Olaf's quick to the point. “I’ll get her back safe,” Olaf promises, waggling his brows at Olaf as he digs through his bag. Mike sighs heavily and leaves the two of them alone in the woods, which is when Olaf shows Anders the insane amount of weed he’s got on his person.  
  
“Holy fuck, grandpa,” Anders says, stunned. “Are you trying to get an army stoned?”  
  
“For the talk we’re about to have, we’ll need it,” Olaf says.  
  
It takes them nearly two hours to get stoned to the point that the world and all its problems seems inconsequential. The sun is dappling the horizon with the last licks of light and Anders is staring upwards, thinking about what ‘goddess of marriage’ actually means. She and Olaf are lying on the ground – her skirt somewhat rucked up around her thighs and Olaf’s head touching her splayed blonde hair.   
  
“There’s something else,” Olaf is saying, gravely. “A quest.”  
  
“That doesn’t sound ominous whatsoever,” Anders mumbles. “What sort of quest?”  
  
“Where there is Frigg, there usually is Odin, all-father, god of all gods. And Odin usually comes looking for his Frigg to fulfill his destiny. Now, we’re lucky,” he promises, “because there’s a whole prophecy that goes along with being Odin and none of the signs have arrived.” Anders isn’t sure what to make of the idea of some prophecy involving her. “If the signs begin to arrive, then we’re going to know that Odin is looking for his Frigg and when that happens, big shit happens. We all go back to being the gods we were.”  
  
“But Odin isn’t out there?”  
  
“Could be,” Olaf admits, inhaling deeply from his joint. “Could be he’s eighty or dead or waiting to be born into some poor sap. Thing is, if he comes for you, that’s pretty much the end of life as you know it. Gods, goddesses…it’s always fucked up.”  
  
“I’ve managed with the lot of you,” Anders protests.   
  
“You and Mike have nearly killed each other at  _least_  five times and Ty barely holds it together around you,” Olaf protests.  
  
“And you’re hardly ever around,” Anders says helpfully. “Don’t forget that part.”  
  
“I go where the surf is and I come back when I’m needed. I’m here, aren’t I? And with drugs.”  
  
“For the weed, I shall forgive you,” Anders allows with a bow of her head, getting settled on the ground again. “So, if I’m a goddess of marriage, that means when I meet Odin, I get to sew him up real quick and make sure I get him written into a hardcore tight contract of marriage so I don't lose out? I'll do that, lead the gods,” she says breezily.  
  
Anders is smart enough to know that the power behind a man is always the woman.  
  
“Just remember your dear old grandpa when that day comes.”  
  


* * *

  
“I had a dream.”

Anders sighs heavily, peering up to where Olaf is swaying to the beat of his own drum. Mike looks just as wary and Ty is peering miserably into his frozen drink – he’s been Hodr for the last three months and can’t stop freezing everything he holds in his hands. “What did you dream about this time?” Mike asks.

“There were white flowers. And a sword. I think it was Odin.”

The Frigg part of Anders’ brain sits up and pays attention. The rest of her isn’t slow to follow. “For real, grandpa? We’re not talking about a crazy dream you had because you sucked back too many mushrooms?”

“No, I’m serious. I think it was Odin. Don’t know why he was wearing a deerstalker hat, though.”

Anders sinks back into the couch and rolls her eyes, pretty sure that mushrooms are going to rot Baldr's brain before a lance made of mistletoe ever gets the chance to end his life. 

“Odin, the Deerstalker.”

“Don’t worry, Anders,” Mike says. “We’ll fetch you a nice stag for the feast, if that’s the case.”

* * *

  
Olaf is the one who introduces her to another oracle, so many years after first becoming Frigg. “You know, it’s very exciting,” she says, this woman named Ingrid. “Olaf says I’m not allowed to tell anyone else, but I thought that you should know my boss is looking for you. Don’t worry,” she swears, her bracelets jangling as she clasps Anders by the shoulders. “I haven’t told anyone who you are. Frigg!” she announces with delight. “You were right,” she says to Olaf.

“About what?” asks Anders suspiciously.

“Very beautiful,” Ingrid murmurs. 

Anders preens with delight.

“Though, somewhat small. Definitely very short. Delicate?”

Anders rolls her eyes. “You said you had a boss. What’s her name?” she demands, intending to get to the heart of the issue. It’s not like she’s about to let some random goddess-woman kidnap her for whatever nefarious purpose she has in mind. “Come on, Ingrid,” Anders coaxes. “Don’t make me pout at you.”

“Fine. Fine! Her name is Agnetha and she wants to stop Odin and Frigg from reuniting. It’s all a bit silly to me, given that we haven’t even heard about a reincarnated Odin, though we are watching the signs,” she promises gravely. “And I’m going through the genealogy to track as many gods and goddesses as we can.”

“Agnetha,” Anders murmurs thoughtfully. “Thanks.”

* * *

  
“Whatever it is you’re thinking, stop,” says Mike.

Anders flashes an innocent smile. “Honestly, Mike, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She holds up the bottle of vodka in her hand. “Here. Drink! I’ve got a new account paired with us for weddings. Fenrir vodka. It’s classy,” she drawls.

“You promise you’re not up to anything?”

“Mike,” Anders gasps. “I’m offended you could think that of me.”

* * *

  
“And this,” says Olaf one day when Mike’s won a bar and Anders officially loves her brother more than ever, “is Sjofn. Minor goddess of love who certainly is more than minorly ambitious,” he says, gesturing behind her for the smaller woman, “but  _this_ , more importantly to you, is Fulla.”

Anders peers past the willowy and modelesque woman to the shorter woman, who’s staring at her like she’s the sun rising, setting, and exploding all at once. Anders is used to people looking at her like she’s the most beautiful thing ever, but this is inching creepily close to obsession. Anders raises her martini glass, clearing her throat to try and get through this awkward moment. “Yeah, hi, Fulla…?”

“It’s you,” she says. “I’m Stacey. Fulla. Whatever you want to call me, you can call me that.”

“Fulla,” Olaf says fondly, “is handmaiden to Frigg. She’s been looking for you.”

“I have a handmaiden?” Anders muses. “That  _isn’t_  Dawn?”

Ty rolls his eyes. “You could be nicer to her.”

“Why? I pay her to put up with my crap,” Anders scoffs. “So, what, you’re my handmaiden? Does that mean you wait on me hand and foot?”

“It means I do anything you want me to do,” Stacey insists, pressing into Anders’ personal space until there's barely a breath of space between them. Anders is definitely not picky about who she sleeps with and it’s sort of been a long time. 

She smiles, sly and slow, and takes hold of Stacey’s hand. “Want to continue this conversation upstairs?” she suggests. Mike’s banned her from sleeping with mortals for what feels like the twentieth time – something about getting tired of men waking them up at three in the morning to propose – and Anders is itching for something a battery-powered object can’t provide.

“…what, you want to sleep with me?” 

Anders shrugs. “I’m horny as fuck. Come on, do your goddess a favour?”

Stacey opens her mouth, closes it, and then nods eagerly. 

“Thanks, Olaf!” Anders says brightly. 

“Hey, not on my…” Mike growls. “Olaf, you couldn’t have brought them to the house? Where Anders’ bed is?”

“No free drinks there.”

“And no free drinks here, either!”

“When did you get so harsh?”

“When you started drinking me out of house and home.”

Anders grins at Stacey and eases her in the direction of the bed. “Don’t mind my family. Gods,” she says with a bright smirk. “What can you do, huh?”


	3. Ty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I've yet to decide if I'm going to add an Axl chapter, other POV's or if I'm going to do a side-verse of this where things get 'shippy!

Ty’s not sure how things settled the way they did, but Mike helped Anders to establish her business and Ty became the go-to wedding date – which mostly translates to showing up in a decent suit and making sure Anders doesn’t do anything  _too_  spectacularly stupid. He’s gotten used to her drinking too much champagne and occasionally popping into the ladies to do a couple of lines and he's complained about a dozen times because Anders never listens to him when he tells her to stop. Mike never listens when Ty suggests they trade places, either.  
  
“Look, it’s Anders,” Mike says, “so she’s going to screw who she wants to screw, but with the Frigg powers, the last thing we need is for that guy to get too handsy with her without anyone there. Understood?”  
  
Ty had protested at the time, but after having to rough up about a half dozen men who couldn’t take no for an answer, he’s willing to endure the terror of an Anders-planned wedding to make sure his sister doesn’t end up in a bad way.  
  
Currently, he’s sitting at the open bar of the latest wedding, watching Anders dance with some bridesmaid and thinks that he’ll probably be handing out tissues at the end of the night. Mike really needs to issue another ‘no-mortals’ pronouncement because Ty’s getting exhausted of trying to fix the people Anders leaves broken in her wake.  
  
“I’m sort of jealous,” Dawn admits, taking the seat next to him. “She plans a perfect wedding,  _always_ , and then she stops worrying. I’m still freaked out that the cake is going to lilt or the sculptures will melt.”  
  
“Don’t worry,” Ty promises with a rueful smile. “On my watch, they won’t.”  
  
“And there she is,” Dawn says, gesturing emphatically, “Dancing like she hasn’t got a care in the world. Maybe it’s the alcohol. Maybe it’s the drugs.”  
  
“I think it’s just Anders,” Ty points out. “Sorry,” he says, excusing himself when he sees Anders leading the bridesmaid away from the group. “Family emergency,” he confesses, sliding his way through the crowd to free Anders of her inevitable fate.  
  


* * *

  
This marriage is not one of Anders'.

This is Ty and Eva at an altar and Ty’s vision seriously impaired because of Eva’s fist. This is Mike glaring at him and Axl fretting and Anders’ distaste for the whole affair radiating so intensely that they’d have to be idiots not to feel it.

“Listen,” Ty says, trying to make amends. “Later, do you want to…”

“Fuck off, Ty,” Anders says darkly. “You made your choice, but I want you to know one thing. You just married the goddess of death,” she clarifies. “And she might be the goddess of death, but I rule marriage. I rule relationships and the moment you smarten up and figure out that this doesn’t  _have_  to be your path, you come and you find me.”

“Anders…”

“Until then? Fuck off.”

Axl’s her new wedding date from then on.

* * *

  
The next wedding in the Johnson family involves a brother far smarter than Ty. With Idunn’s spirit newly born in Gaia, Axl shyly approaches Anders with both hands in his pockets. “We were wondering if you’d…I don’t know…maybe put something together for us? We just want to do it soon,” he says, glancing to Ty like he needs his permission, too. 

Anders lights up, grateful to be included. “See, Tyrone?” she notes, icily. “That’s how you appease your sister.”

Ty, still in the midst of navigating his new mortality, politely nods and offers Axl his congratulations and well-wishes.

* * *

  
When they were children, Ty had elected himself protector of their mother. Anders had always sworn she didn’t need protecting and would hit back as much as their father hit them – spit blood into his face before she curled up in Ty’s arms, sobbing, and bore her bruises without hiding them. 

“Ty,” Anders says quietly. 

It’s shadowy in the front hall and Ty glances up from the invoices he’s been poring over. When Anders steps into the light, she’s riddled with bruises. 

“Holy shit,” Ty exhales. “Axl! Mike!” he shouts, sending the papers scattered as he rushes to Anders’ side. She waves him off as she limps into the living room. “What the hell happened to you? Who?”

She looks at him with that disconcerting look of hers – the one that says she’s plotting something and God help whoever gets in her way. It’s not sympathy she’s after. It’s what Ty can offer. She digs out a scrap of fabric from her pocket. “Take this, take Mike,” she instructs, swallowing and lifting her chin up in defiance of whatever weakness she's completely allowed to be feeling. “And do whatever you want to him without killing him. Make it hurt, Ty,” she growls. “I want it to  _hurt_.”

Mike and Axl are keeping their distance, but when Ty holds out the scrap to Mike, he catches a dark edge to Mike that hasn't showed up in a while.

“Axl, watch your sister,” Mike commands and then Ty’s out the front door with him. 

Ty knows he wants to fuck up this arsehole, but he's not entirely sure what comes after that. “Mike, what are we going to do?”

“What she asked for,” is all Mike says. “Come on, I’ve got the trail.”

* * *

  
Anders is the first one he sees when he wakes up with his god spirit gone. She’s a fuzzy cloud of light and all visions of Dawn are gone. Instead, his family is waiting for him. “Careful,” Anders murmurs. “Careful, Ty, you had a bit of a rough go of it.” He feels suffused with warmth, an overwhelming amount, and he asks what it is, practically shivering with it. “That’s me,” Anders apologizes. “You normally don’t feel it, being…you know, Hodr. That’d be the warmth of love and goodness radiating out into the world.”

“I still can’t believe you spread goodness,” Michele snorts. “ _You_ , of all people.”

“I spread it, I don’t have to _be_ it,” Anders retorts, one hand on Ty’s shoulder. “Are you going to be okay?”

Basking in the glow of warmth, Ty nods his head. “Yeah. Yeah. Hey, do you have any of that champagne and that cake from the last event?” He wants to taste something again and he wants the first thing he tastes to be  _incredible_. 

“Your wish is my command, Ty. Always.”


	4. Axl

When Axl is sixteen, he’s not sure how to describe his life to other people. His older sister acts like a mother when she’s not drinking and his older brother acts like a Dad when he’s not in a middle of a control freak state. Ty keeps saying he’s going to be fucked in the head, but Axl gets lunches packed every day – with vodka water bottles after he turns eighteen, which had stopped soon as Mike figured that one out – and there’s always someone there for his conferences and someone is there to help him study when school gets too hard.  
  
So, maybe he’s fucked up? But Axl’s pretty sure he can cope if this is what it’s like.  
  
Besides, as soon as his twenty-first arrives, Axl learns that his core definition of ‘fucked up’ needs to be expanded. He’s standing in the middle of the woods with a sword in hand while Anders, Ty, and Mike bicker back and forth.  
  
“I didn’t have to do the stupid sword shit, I don’t understand why you can’t just  _try…_ ”  
  
“Anders,” Mike cuts her off. “He’s a god. This is what happens for gods.”  
  
“Fuck you and your high and mighty god shit,” she retorts, scoffing as she flips Mike the finger. “Fine. Have it your way. Let Axl get fried by lightning!”  
  
“Um,” says Axl. “What?”  
  
“Anders,” Mike hisses.  
  
“I mean, the sign,” she says, eyes widening in mock-innocence as she takes several steps back and tightens the belt of her coat, stepping behind Ty for protection. Axl isn’t sure he likes where this is going, but he does as he’s told and raises the sword above his head, receiving his destiny and his path in the form of a god of poetry.   
  
When the charge from the lightning bolt settles, Anders beams at him. “Welcome to the pantheon, baby bro,” she says.   
  


* * *

  
“Axl, family emergency.”

Axl knows that Gaia is getting pissed at him for always bolting and he’s been trying to use the Bragi voice cautiously, but he uses it whenever he needs to excuse himself for another family emergency – it feels like they’re coming up a lot more lately. “What is it?” he asks when he shows up at Anders’ office to find Mike, Anders, and Ty staring down some woman like it’s a standoff. “What…?”

“Axl,” Mike says, voice clipped, “This is Agnetha.”

“Okay?” Axl says warily, wandering over to join his siblings in staring down the scary-seeming business-lady. “And why do we care?”

“Because she’s our mother,” Anders says, not taking her eyes off the woman. “And she’s here to offer us a deal to make sure that I never meet Odin. Riches beyond our wildest belief, I think you said? Right,” Anders says, without giving Agnetha space to speak. “No one tells me what I can and can’t do, so fuck you and fuck that. You may be our mother, but you’re not going to tell me what the future holds.”

“I thought our mother was a tree,” Axl murmurs aside to Ty.

“She was. Long story,” Ty replies. 

“You know where to find me if you change your mind, Anders,” Agnetha says. “Don’t be so hasty in giving up a life of comfort.” She leaves without much of a fuss and Axl exhales when she’s gone, not sure what’s going to happen.

Mike digs through the fridge and hands out beers. “Trust Mum to come back into our lives with a bang,” he mutters, glancing over to Anders. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Anders says dismissively. “Fuck her. I’m rich enough without her giving us handouts.”

And so as Frigg dictates, the rest of the family follows.

* * *

  
“Okay, so,” says Zeb. “You’re Bragi.”

“Zeb, shut up before someone hears you!” Axl hisses. 

“Which means you’re the god of poetry. Does that mean you’ve used your words on me? Have you coerced me into sinful things using godly prose?” he asks warily, poking at Axl’s shoulder. “Have I been doing things without realizing because your soothing words have flowed over me like the river Styx?”

“That’s Greek, Zeb,” Axl says, cautiously looking around him to make sure no one can overhear.

“And Mike is Ullr, god of games. Which explains a lot as to why I can’t ever win pool with him. And Ty?”

“Hodr,” Axl explains. “Which is why you always put on a second jacket when he comes around. You’re not actually cold-blooded,” he offers helpfully. 

“I  _knew_  something was up with him! So, wait, is it just the brothers? You said your cousin is your grandfather because he’s Baldr reborn, but what about Anders? I haven’t really ever noticed anything off about her apart from her being smoking hot and kind of easy,” Zeb says.

Axl licks his lips. “Frigg. Goddess of marriage, which is why we always have those little cake toppers around.” And why there’s always a guaranteed list of blokes around who are looking to make Anders their one and only. “Zeb, seriously, if Mike finds out I told you about this…”

“I’m a well-sealed drum of secrets, my friend,” Zeb assures cheerfully.

Axl’s not really sure he believes that, but the damage is done by now.

* * *

  
“There’s been an earthquake,” says Axl one night. “And the seas are running red with blood. There are shooting stars in the sky. Anders, I think…”

“Yeah,” Anders says. “Yeah, I noticed too.”

“Are you going to be okay?”

“We’re not quite there yet,” is all Anders has to say about it. “And if it is time, then I hope you’re ready to be a full-on god, Axl Johnson, because Odin is coming.”


End file.
